Weekly Roundup

Social Media and Investing – A recent study found that nearly 60% of Gen Z and millennial investors (age 40 and younger) are members of investment communities or forums, such as Reddit, and nearly half have turned to social media in the past month for investing research.

Gamification – Investment professional Chris Gullotti authored an op-ed about his take on the rush of people buying into “hot stocks” only to get into hot water instead.

Increase in Canadian Retail Investor Participation – It was reported that retail investor participation is increasing not only in the US, but in Canada as well. Canadian exchange operator TMX Group Ltd reported that retail investor participation rose to 45% of total equities trading in January, up from 35% ayear ago.

Cybersecurity & Source Code – Theft of source code continued to garner headlines, with reports from Microsoft that SolarWinds hackers viewed, downloaded source code for Azure, Intune, Exchangecomponents.

In the Mix: This Week’s Top FinTech Thought Leader

Introducing “In the Mix” – a roundup of key thought leaders in FinTech and an overview of their policies and platforms.

This week’s “In the Mix” includes:

  • Samir Pandiri, President, Broadridge International, published his “top 3 fintech predictions” for 2021 including the following: ESG will continue to dominate; pivot to hybrid working and other changes in office life; and further outsourcing to tech platforms.
  • Kathryn Petralia, Co-Founder of Kabbage, discussed trends in fintech, as a recent study shows growth in fintech firms in areas such as digital asset exchanges, payments, savings, and wealth managementreported growth in transaction numbers and volumes of 13% and 11% respectively.
  • Devron Brown continued thought leadership on fintech issues including policy matters of AI, digitalcurrency, and tech policy.